Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a data-carrying technique for high-performance telecommunications networks. An MPLS instance may direct data from a first node to a second node based on, for example, path labels rather than network addresses. By design, the path labels may be significantly shorter than the network addresses. This helps to avoid process- or time-intensive tasks, such as looking up addresses in a routing table. Each path label may identify a virtual link, which may represent a path between the nodes. The “multi-protocol” aspect of MPLS implies that MPLS is suitable for encapsulating packets of many different network protocols and access technologies.